


Found you lost

by maharetr



Category: Nikita - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharetr/pseuds/maharetr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That should have been you," Michael says. "<i>Not caring</i>, not getting attached!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found you lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [athousandwinds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/gifts).



From the moment Victor bends double, coughing, Nikita’s on autopilot. She’s in the sort of zone where thought would take long enough to be dangerous, and she’s registering things moments after she’s done them, not thinking, moving on instinct as she takes down bodyguard after bodyguard. Conscious thought returns while she’s holding the epipen -- and Victor’s life -- in her hand. For one long moment she hesitates while Victor wheezes. But she’s not the sort of person to let a person die, even if they are an asshole. She takes a small amount of pleasure in stabbing him, hard, with the pen, and that pleasure is expensive: she’s focused on getting Victor out of there and starting to _think_ about the sting in her hands, and --

It’s her lizard brain that registers the separate shots, the sharp, single _crack_ and the rattle of uncontrolled fire. _Sniper_ her conscious brain recognizes, alarmed, at the same time as her lizard brain is jerking her head up towards the origin of the shot.

It’s not so much as seeing the red dot dance over her body and center on her chest as feeling Michael’s gaze behind it. She raises her eyes to his, because if he’s going to kill her -- no bulletproof glass here -- then she’s damn well going to face him head on. She has time to take a breath, and then another, and then Michael raises himself from his stance and she’s holding his gaze as steadily as she can with the adrenaline coursing through her body.

Michael stands smoothly, cradling the rifle against his body, and it’s been whole seconds now that Nikita hasn’t moved but Victor’s still wheezing and probably isn’t going to notice. Michael’s hand is pale against the black metal of his gun, and he points downward, taps his index finger once, twice, against the body of the rifle and then a double-tap of his index and middle fingers. Nikita signals her response with the spread of her fingers and a jerk of her head: it’s not like she had plans for the evening, she just needs to clean up this part of the mess first. Michael nods, once, and melts back out of sight.

Victor is too out of it to be able to focus on where she’s driving, but he’s with it enough to keep shooting her glances filled with anger, but there's more than a little fear there, too. The adrenaline from the epipen has left him jittery, and her adrenaline from the fight isn’t helping her much either. Nikita drives south, counting intersections. She takes in the alley on her side of the car, and the two story buildings on either side.

“Where are we?” Victor rasps, peering blearily out the window at the derelict shops.

“Shut up,” she snaps. She doesn’t _have_ to incapacitate him before she goes for the plasti-ties, but she unclips the handheld taser from her belt anyway. She thinks of Sophie and Lisa, and amps up the voltage just a little before she jams it into his leg. “Night-night...” she murmurs, and does a U-turn in the direction of the nearest police station.

~*~

The hotel receptionist barely glances up as Nikita goes up to her room -- booked under a false name, using the fake identity’s credit card. She washes away sweat and adrenaline-stink and blood down the shower drain, and dries off with a steady debate going on in her head: risks and pay offs and _want_.

She rechecks her equipment and dresses, layering her kit under her clothes.

She’s thirty minutes early to the alley, probably set because 0000 hours was easier to signal than 2345, and _right goddamn now_ would have been tempting, (and obeyed, if she was being honest), but not practical under the circumstances. _This_ isn’t practical, not for her, and definitely not for him -- she doubts Percy would have let him on a long enough leash other than ‘come straight back,’ with or without her head on a silver platter. Maybe he’s not here under Percy’s orders. She doubts that too; Michael had been far too good a soldier boy to risk something like that. But then again, looking back, she wouldn’t have pegged him for the falling in love type, either.

Nikita touches the base of her throat, where the laser sight had rested. She waits in the dark, on the rooftop overlooking the rendezvous point.

Michael is seventeen minutes early to the rendezvous point. He climbs the metal fire escape quietly enough that she doesn’t hear him, but she’s keeping an eye on the tripwire so she sees him see it, and ease his way onto the roof beneath it, almost soundless in the dark.

“Hey,” she greets, and there’s a mix of wariness and want battling in her body. He stalks towards her, and her wariness spikes -- she’s settling into combat stance without even thinking.

“That should have been _you_.” Michael hisses when he’s close enough to be heard without their voices carrying. Michael clearly hasn’t had the luxury of a shower or a mental cool down period. Desire and anger are interchangeable, sometimes, and they surge within her.

“What?” she snaps. “Dead on the ground? Yeah, it should have been. Why aren’t I?”

“No! Victor!” he rakes a hand through his hair, and she relaxes, ever so slightly, even as he closes the distance, leans in inches from her face. “That should have been you _not caring_ , not getting attached to people!”

She nearly, nearly laughs. “What? Like you’re doing a bang-up job of right now?”

He cries out, a snarl of incoherence, but she’s still calm and holding perfectly still when she reaches out with a verbal blade and cuts, just so.

“You’re still here on Percy’s leash, aren’t you? Loyal Michael.”

She steps out of his reach even as he’s snarling, lunging at her, and then they’re both dancing: steps and moves of parry, block and attack, stinging blows that hurt ribs and knuckles and will leave spectacular bruises come morning. They’re making it up as they go along, like they’d always done, for everything, and she keeps an eye on what’s at her back, until she’s back against the wall of the stairwell shelter, and she can defend, defend, defend, until he gets a leg between hers, and closes the gap with his mouth, and it’s not like she wants to defend against that.

“Only most of the time,” he whispers against her lips. Nikita kisses him back, hard, while she pulls his shirt up out of his jeans, feeling for the holster toss the pistol aside, and scraping her foot up the inside of his leg, feeling for a knife sheath. He’s tugged the garrotte wire free from her ponytail, letting her hair fall around her shoulders, and steps back for a moment to grab her boot before she can resettle her foot, feeling for the blade hidden there and sending the knife skittering across the rooftop. For a second they’re holding each other’s gaze, dishevelled and teetering on the edge between “operational sensibilities” and “disciplinary action”. Then Michael’s stepped back in, and they’re pressing against each other, and they’re way over that line.

He’s panting, breath hot against her neck, and desire is thrilling under her skin, making her whimper. He’s got both hands under her clothes again, but he’s pushing up her shirt. Her hands hesitate on his fly.

“Can’t,” she whispers. “If we...” She can feel his hard-on through the fabric, and it takes all of her self-control to take her hand away. “Amanda will be able to _smell_ it.”

Michael laughs raggedly. “She’s not that good.”

“She’ll know,” Nikita insists, and he doesn’t try and refute that. She rests her forehead on his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him.

“Come with me,” she whispers. “Fuck them.”

Michael is still against her, but he shakes his head, slowly, regretfully.

“I can’t,” he says, but it sounds like it hurts to admit. Some of the anger that had been lost in her arousal breaks the surface.

“What? What do you owe him?”

“I owe him my life,” Michael says, and there’s that steel there, under all the desperation. “ _You_ owe him your life. He shaped us --”

“No!” she leans back just enough to be able to see his eyes, glinting in the gloom. “He pulled me off death row. _You_ made me.”

He shudders, his whole body, and presses against her again. “Goddamnit,” he groans, frustration and desire roughening his voice.

“Hey,” she murmurs, and she can’t quite keep the smile out of her voice. “There’ll be plenty of other times to nearly kill me, right?”

He chokes on his laughter, and kisses her, hard, a clash of lips and teeth and tongue. Then, just as abruptly he steps back, leaving her gasping a little and having to fight to keep her balance. He doesn’t look all that steady, either; his hands are slightly shaky as he tries to tuck his shirt in. Given the choice between looking presentable and gathering her weapons, Nikita goes for her weapons.

“I’ve got a diplomatic incident to start smoothing over,” he says, trying to straighten his clothes. “You’ve got some running to do.”

She laughs, tucking her gun back into her waistband. “You’re going to give me a head start, right?”

He manages to look dignified as he turns his back on her. “One...” he says, slowly. “Two...”

Nikita grins at Michael’s back, and runs.


End file.
